I had no idea there were still so many active fans...In any event, I was able to recently obtain the GK series from GOG. I've never played them before, so I am enoying them now for the first time. I really liked the GK1 playthrough you guys did months ago; I played along with it, and it really enhanced my experience (though of course, it was too late for me to comment my thoughts).
I am currently playing GK2, for the first time, and as per Tawmis' suggestion, I wanted to write some of my impressions on the game here, in case anybody is interested. So, as per his request, I'll start writing here some of my thoughts.
Overall gameplay:
I have to say that the interface/game-presentation change was a bit hard to get into at first. I had never played a FMV game before, so this kind of presentation felt weird and klunky. After playing for a while, I have to say that there are some downsides but also some very positive aspects. Being able to see how the character react, in their faces and their postures, is way better in terms of getting into the story than the pixelated graphics from GK1. I think I am starting to enjoy this approach now, though I do get tired of the transition movies pretty fast.
The dumbing down of the interface took me a little by surprise, too. I was expecting a simplified interface, but going down from 8 action icons to 1 icon that actually lights up when you move it over a hotspot was a biig change. It does give the game a faster pacing, though there is less space to poke around and discover weird results to different action/object combinations.
I think what I miss the most, by far, is being able to look at everything and get interesting, funny, or witty descriptions of stuff. The world feels much emptier with only a few hotspots here and there, and a couple of comments on the objects from Gabriel and Grace. I feel less excited about investigating the world.
I also had troubles with pixel hunting in the first chapter. I couldn't for the life of me see the walkie-talkie on Dr. Klingman's desk, so I was stuck there for a long while trying to figure out that puzzle. I wasn't able to find the post office either, even though I was looking everywhere for a mailbox, and I actually tried several times to find something useful in the screen where the post office was. I had to resort to walkthroughs to find these things; I wasn't expecting this to be the case when having a cursor that highlights hotspots.
About the story and characters:
It was a bit hard to start Chapter one as there as there was no purpose other than wandering around and looking for clues. And since I couldn't "look" at everything and get funny descriptions, it took me a bit of effort to move along. I think I like how this actor is portraying Gabriel, even though it's somewhat different from his original incarnation. This chapter was mostly about learning the mechanichs of the game, though it started getting interesting by the end of the chapter, during the closing movie.
The second chapter went by much faster for me. I actually enjoyed following the different werewolf trails, and I didn't get stuck at any point. Everything made sense and the puzzles felt natural. The only thing I didn't like so much was how they portrayed Grace. On GK1, Grace was a strong minded but nice girl. Here, she is... hmm, I don't want to use strong language... angry all the time? In her first scene, she lied and was not nice to a customer, due to her conflicting emotions towards Gabriel. Ok, that wasn't so terrible. Then she goes and talks to Gerde, and she is a real pain in the rear with her too. And once you start playing, she just gets worse and worse with Gerde. So the initial impression I got of Grace is that... I really didn't like her. I liked Gracie from GK1, and I wanted to like this one, but I couldn't. Fortunately, she wasn't such a pain to the rest of the people in town, something that by that time actually surprised me. I just finished chapter 2, so I'm really trying to like Grace, but I hope she changes her attitude or it will be really hard for me to do that.
The story is starting to get really interesting, so I hope I'll be able to conotinue with chapter 3 soon enough.
However, I did write a mini-biography about one of the game's characters...